Winter Mission 2003
 
This was our 16th or 17th medical mission to Guatemala (I am losing count) and the 7th winter  mission. we  had a team of 54 personnel this year plus the school girls who help with registration. We had 10 doctors, (3 Guatemalan), 5 nurses, 5 pharmacists,3 dentists, 1 trained tooth extractor, 2 dental assistants,1 Guatemalan translator for the dental team, 11 translators (4 Guatemalan) for the medical teams and 16 lay people (4 Guatemalan who were health care workers from Gualan). The lay people assisted in pharmacy, crowd control, and after care.
 
Because of the clinic sites pick-up and boat transportation the winter teams prefers to have small teams of 8 to 9 members each for efficiency. We divided into 5 medical teams and 1 dental team. This allows us to hold 20 medical clinics and 4 dental clinics in Mariscos and 10 medical clinics and 2 dental clinics in Gualan. The medical teams treated 6,359 and the dental team treated 316 patients and extracted 835 teeth for a total or 6,675 in the areas of Mariscos and Gualan. Plus we dispensed 5850 parasites treatments to school children. This parasite treatment is a single tablet dose that they chew it up on the spot. This parasite treatment is cheap, the last time I calculated the cost it was under .04 each. This treatment allows the children to live parasite free for a few months, but the parasites are back full strength in about 6 months. This is why the summer youth mission is important and worth while. Some of the teachers thank us so much when the youth comes, and they tell us they actually see children die just from parasites. The youth team last summer visited 30 different schools and treated 6,479. This hands on experience means so much more to our youth and the Guatemalan youth we are treating than to paint a building.
 
I can not say enough about our team and team leaders this year. I know we all say this but it truly was the best mission ever. The team's personnel were very congenial and we had only small logistical problems that were easy to over come. All the teams worked hard and long days to treat all who come to our clinics. It is more important to us to treat all who come, than for a team to treat 400 in a day and turn some away. The 5 team leaders were Carol Murphy, Chan West, Ava Wainwright, Jean Richards, Allison Michaelson, and Larry Copenhaver. There are always many new challenges each year; we visited several new clinic sites and we made  changes for the team leaders to have more responsibly for their team members in accountability and making sure the new personnel adapted into the camp living, country and clinics. I had the privilege of pulling teeth with Dr. Larry Copenhaver on the day we normally take off. Larry had 5 chairs going at one time, with little help from me. I was just glad I did not pass out.
 
Saturday the teams had to get up at 3:00am arriving in Guatemala at 12:30pm then a 5-hour bus ride to Mariscos. Realizing from last year how tired the team was; we made the decision to take the first night off from normal pill counting and have the whole team do it the next morning. With 54 people we packed 95% of the medicines by lunch. Then we had lunch or rather our snacks and departed for our first days clinics. These clinic sites were picked to be small to allow the teams a warm up day to work all the bugs out. The next day was full load. 
 
Our day began at 6:00am each day with breakfast and a service at 6:45 and we would try to depart for our clinics by 7:15 to 7:30. Some were over an hour away by pick-up or boat. The teams that finished early each day would open the clinic in Mariscos around 1:00pm or 2:00; other teams that finished would join in and work until dark or till we ran out of patients. We had 3 clinic days (Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday) Wednesday we normally take off the morning and pack up for the move to Gualan. We had to do 3 small clinics on Wednesday and took volunteers.  We used to take off 2 days at the end of the mission but we changed it to only 1 day at the end in order to take off a little time in between. This is a needed break for the team; it gives them a little time in the morning to recharge their batteries-as hard as they work I am not sure if they could work 5 consecutive days. We added 4 new sites to the Mariscos area, sending two teams to Puerto Barrios, 1 to Moralis and a new one up the lake to a place called Chapin. 
 
Wednesday we moved the team to Gualan and arrived just about dark to find the power was off; this was so difficult to un-load and try to find our rooms in the dark. It seems like everywhere I turn in Guatemala there is a step down which is even more fun in the dark. Santiago and I both were carrying heavy bags in our room and found a surprise step about 6 feet inside the door. All the trucks were provided by the different villages at no cost and were there on time Thursday morning. We worked Thursday and Friday in Gualan shutting down about 3:00pm for inventory and departing to Antigua at 5:00. I want to go on record stating that I really love Mariscos and the area and do not like moving the team to Gualan. However the people around Mariscos are poor and need the help but the people around Gualan are really poor and I love helping this area. We are the only international team to ever visit these villages-some are a hour and a half up jeep trails into the mountains.
 
The plan was to take an advance team down 5 days early and pick up all the summer team's inventory and the new shipment in from Europe; then take them to Mariscos on Tuesday for organizing the medications, work out transportation, and a visit to all the restaurants to talk about hygiene and use of paper plates and plastic dinnerware, also to work out all the room assignments for both sites. There were 4 of us going to Mariscos early, one who has been a big part of the team in organizing and labels  told me 3 days before we left she could not go and Santiago Solorio who is a 270lbs. weight lifter, and is my personal body guard and translator, he told me the morning we were supposed to leave for the airport; he could not go because of a illness with his mother. (he did join the team just a half a day late) Going down early is so important in working out many plans. A lot of details just do not happen till you arrive and are looking them in the face. I can not even make the team roster till the last min. because of constant changes. Gustavo said he would go with me and help in the translating but he could not go till Thursday and only if he could come back the same day so Donna Chipps and I had to depart Antigua at 4:00am. It was 5 hours each way. I left Donna at the church camp to organize and lay out the medicines; she also got a few school children to help and started counting them with our pill counter Geary Gaston made us. We got back about 6:00 or 7:00. This did work well; there were a few things I could not check off the list but was able to complete them over the phone on Friday.
 
Our boat driver's motor broke down this year and it was going to cost him over $500.00. We took up a collection and lent him the money. (This was outside the mission fund) For this he promised to lower our boating expenses in the future and he would pay it back by next summer. Our boat expense was $494.15 this year and we visited 7 clinics by water. Most of these sights are over a hour away and we require the boats and\ or trucks to stay with the team in case of an emergency or if they are done early. I also stressed to Chayo that this loan was outside of the mission and he was not to tell anyone in town, for we could not do this for anyone else. Chayo has been our boat driver for at least 7 years.
 
We had to pay a little over $1,500.00 in import taxes this year. Guatavo thinks we might be able to ship to a tax exempt organization this summer and not have to pay it. Churches are no longer tax-exempt. Juan Carlos from Guatemala helped us with translation this year, and he thinks he might be able to help us with a refund on this tax.
 
Our medicines somehow got out of balance this year. We had plenty of antibiotics and were short of pain medications all week and vitamins just at the end, so we were not able to pack for the summer team because of this. Donna and Lamar promised to work this out and get us back in balance. We won't have the inventory for a few weeks but we hope we still have $3,000 to $4,000 in inventory in storage. Gustavo has a room next to his house that we are going to start storing our inventory. Storage at the cathedral is full and very hard to get heavy baggage in and out.
 
Over all we had a wonderful successful mission and I thank all the people who help make it successful; we can not do it without you.
Love Richard